


sea full of stars

by laughingtoucan, Unsundered Dawn (laughingtoucan)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Abrupt tense change, Amaurot (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst and Tragedy, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28106595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingtoucan/pseuds/laughingtoucan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingtoucan/pseuds/Unsundered%20Dawn
Summary: The end is near for Amaurot. Azem confides his fears in an old teacher and both learn to let go.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Dawnguard Fics





	sea full of stars

Their star is dim, very nearly swallowed by the eternal sky. But it is not yet devoid of life. They have given and given and _given_ to Zodiark, and yet their cities burn. The world crumbles.

She finds him outside the city limits, seated in a patch of grass still green, when all else has withered--a spot offering an unparalleled view of the seascape beyond. Behind them lies Amaurot. Flames. Cries of the dying for the dead.

As she steps forward, she notes how the fractured din behind her fades into the calm of night, broken only by her soft footsteps and the gentle hum somewhere both beyond them and within them.

Closer still, she notices he tremble in his shoulders, how they shudder and twitch.

Then she hears a hiccup, a sniffle, and the barest-boned attempt to hold fast. It takes everything he has.

“Azem?” It feels too clinical, but the habit to err towards the professional chases her, even now--as if pretending that all were fine would make it so.

He bows his head and wipes his nose on the edge of his robes, then turns. 

His mask is gone, resting in the cool earth beside him, his eyes bloodshot and gummy. “W-what are you doing out here?”

Promethea frowns. He looks so small, so frightened. It’s unlike him and her heart aches. “I had a moment.” Her smile is weak as she offers her half-truth. Her students are barricaded within one of the libraries, toppling shelves to try and stave off the death they know they can’t escape. “--no one had seen you, so I went looking. As I do.” She gives little thought to the grass or dirt as she takes a place next to him.

Shoulder to shoulder, she can survey the damage: his robes are tattered, his hands burnt and face smeared with ash. Between them, though she cannot see it, his mask is cracked.

He watches her, brows pinched with confusion as he searches her face--for what, she cannot say. Then, again, he begins to tremble, again, he tears begin to well. “I’m. I’m sorry.” His voice cracks as fat tears slide anew down his dirty cheeks. He doubles over into his hands and keens. “I tried so hard! I-I did everything I could, but I--”

She twists and gathers him into her chest as he shakes and bawls. Her favorite student. Her little hero.

“--I couldn’t do anything that made a difference! Everyone died! Everyone!” He pauses, words faltering as he shudders in her arms, “...he’s gone, Promethea.” Pressed between them, she feels his hands rigid, shaking. “He was with me and then he just--I couldn’t stop it.”

She knows. She can feel it--something deep inside that isn’t quite stagnant, but...it’s still. Quiet. And growing.

He gingerly pulls back, turning away to watch the sea. He told her once that he came here to watch the light play against the waves. Tonight, backlit by their burning home, the sky and sea both seem vacant and further than ever. 

His gaze droops and he almost smiles through the tears. “I-I was with him here. And I held him. And begged him to stay. And he. He left. It took him.” His hands wring together, clutched in the fabric of his robes. “It was just emptiness. I didn’t want to be alone, but now...”

She knows who it is. Azem’s heart is a vine, curling and branching as it grows, drawing in those who would hesitate instead of turn him away. She has seen Hythlodeus in the maze of broken buildings. Hades has been accounted for by another survivor, counting him among their ranks on the opposite side of the city. Neither of these, it could only be one other.

A scholar once left to join the adventures of the Fourteenth seat, one who’s mere presence lit the man like the sun itself. Now he is gone as well and only grief remains.

There’s so little she can offer and the realization cuts deep.

Azem laughs--a small noise, heartbroken. “I can’t walk. It’s happening to me too.” He shakes his head, burying everything for a moment. He wants to shoulder the weight so badly, to sweep in and deliver something bright, something tangible and hopeful. It’s the way it’s been for so long, to do otherwise is terrifying.

But the threat is real.

...even in the absence of that strength, he wants to go the way the world sees him. To give those left behind something to hold close. A light in the darkness.

But he _needs_ something else.

His resolve, long-steeled and steadfast, shatters beneath the weight of their collapsing star. She quickly draws him in again, arms tight as he stammers out broken apologies.

He knows he’s not, nor has ever been an all-powerful savior. He simply goes places. Helps people. Theirs is the star that works together to find solutions, but…

Not strong enough.  
Not fast enough.  
Not smart enough.  
Not enough.

He finds weak and broken links and holds their chain together until They as a people can overcome.

And now he is overcome, overwhelmed, and undone. And everything is broken.

Not _enough_.

She pushes back his hood, tangling a hand in his thick twist of loose braids. Pets him. Holds him. And he sobs. Wails. Loses grip on everything he’s fought to hold onto.

This is the first time since everything began that she’s been close enough to feel someone going. Not dying-- _going_. 

His light is dim. Not in the sense of being snuffed out. It’s like a plant unfurling to reveal a thousand upon thousand seeds. And with a firm enough breeze, they go, spread in a thousand directions…

“Azem.” She presses a kiss to his temple and guides him down to lay, to cling to her waist, his head in her lap. Initially, he is not easily moved, but once recognizing her intentions, he pours against her, needful and desperate for the consolation. “--my most darling and esteemed. Our fourteenth. Our son.” 

He shudders and she thinks there might have been a laugh somewhere beneath the grime and the hurt. So she continues petting and he uncurls to let it all in, every piece of her love.

Her smile is soft and genuine as she carefully sweeps aside flyaway locks of hair, “--my son… You’ve fought so hard and done so much. But it’s time to rest.”

He doesn’t want to succumb, but there is little to counter the exhaustion brought by tears than sleep. And he is so terribly tired. 

The stillness is blossoming. Each moment begins to drain him more. Where he wishes to stand, his legs refuse to budge in the slightest. His arms become leadened. He becomes still and quiet beneath her patient hands. The weight is pleasant and reassuring.

“I know you, boy.” she teases. “There is no end for you. Not with that drive. Only a reprieve--but...one that is well earned.”

He hiccups once more quietly and shifts onto his back. Her hand rests against his forehead and the other clasps with one of his. They don’t need to speak of what it feels like. She feels it in her chest too, swelling gently. The peace it grants is alien, and for that, terrifying. But it is still peace.

“I love you more than words can convey. My dear. My sweet. My terrible little hellion of a student...and my impassioned and driven colleague.”

His eyes cast skyward and the night is thick around them. 

“There is so much to do,and so much you will yet do. But for a moment, rest.”

His chest is tight, but he does not cry. He’s not sure he can. He squeezes Promethea’s hand and she returns the gesture. It feels good to have someone near.

He sniffles. His golden eyes unfocus. Everything takes so much concentration.

She squeezes all the more firmly and holds her breath. “Know. K-know I will follow you. Guide you. Protect you until you can protect others and until the end. No matter the distance.”

Exhale. Inhale. She shudders, the tenseness creeping into her shoulders when it can find no purchase elsewhere.

And then he is gone: a space empty in her arms and aether like stardust, captured on the breeze and drawn out to sea.

Exhale.

There is nothing left spare for his mask and she clutches it, desperate for the release of tears, but bereft of the energy to let them fall.

She can hear the city behind her. A building collapses and the fall echoes through the streets, pushed outward in the roaring gasp. One of the many newly born nightmares soars overhead, riding the heat that plumes up from the wreckage.

Her legs do not carry her easily, but she rises nonetheless. Perhaps she will make it back to her students before she too will disappear. Perhaps not. Moving slowly, she is easy prey.

Time will tell.

ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚✩ ⋆｡˚ ✩ 

┊ ┊ ┊ ✫ 

┊ ┊ ✩ 

┊ ⊹ ✯

✯

It would be a lie to say he opened his eyes to darkness. Deepest purples and inky blues painted the dark skies over Thanalan, marked by bright pinpricks across its length--some so near you could swear that with a peak high enough you could simply reach out and touch it...with others sinking impossibly deep into its abyss, barely visible, but for a twinkle.

He blinked, his golden eyes bleary as the world around him began to stir. A fire crackled near his bedroll, weak from a night’s worth of light, but hearty enough to keep his small body warm, safe from the chill of the lingering night.

In the distance, his father recited the contents of a storeroom shared in part with a neighbor, counting inventory as his mother verified the numbers against a ledger. His ears perked at the call for loose brush and firewood. It echoed from body to body through the waking bazaar, enticing all yet in bed with the promise of a hot meal.

He laid basking in the twilight routine for a little longer, beneath the wash of starlight. Toward the eastern horizon, where sand met sky, the soft flush of pinks and oranges of dawn came creeping over the rise of Ul’dah’s walls. Within an hour or two, the sun would crown itself atop the largest dome in the city, shimmering against it like gold. To the west beyond them, where sea met sky, the world still slept on. And in that moment, he laid between them, almost adrift, spare for the warm bedroll that moored him.

Weighing his options, he knew he wanted to finish his chores in time to watch the sun break over the palace, but the stars, grown ever fainter as the dawn rose, called to him still, reaching.

At the heart of the Bazaar, Kikipu: “Where is that boy? H’zura!”

He sighed, a smile drawn across his lips and twisted himself from his bedroll and began to fold it. “Coming, ma’am!”

She scolded him for the unnecessary formalities and he laughed, in the rise of a new dawn, waiting at the edge of a sea full of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Promethea's latest Source incarnation is Mihalo, a male hrothgar, and one of the founding members of Dawnguard. While not Azem's parent, she oversaw much of his higher education.


End file.
